Member-only story

What’s In My Kitchen Pantry

Essential Seasonings for Everyday French Cooking

Francois de Melogue
9 min readAug 24, 2020

If someone asked me what I would take from my pantry if I knew I was going to be shipwrecked, I would probably answer just 3 things: sea salt, Espelette pepper, and herbes de Provence. Well, 4, if you include a glass of wine, which I personally consider central to French living and almost as important as any of the seasonings I listed above. For me, those three things are indispensable for everyday French home cooking. Though if my wife overheard this, she would promptly burst out laughing before opening my cabinets and exposing all my lies.

Pantry photo by Artem Kostelnyuk on unsplash.com

Pantries are easily filled with items you only use for one recipe before relegating them to the back corners of your cabinet. So, I will start with the basics and provide hints where you could keep going if you were so inclined.

Let’s begin with the basic seasonings.

The Holy Trinity of Salts

At home, I use 3 different kinds of sea salt, each with a specific purpose.

Adobe stock photo

La Baleine brand fine sea salt comes from the Mediterranean, and you will find it in every single French…

--

--

Francois de Melogue
Francois de Melogue

Written by Francois de Melogue

My earliest attempt at cookery began with the filleting of my sister's goldfish at age 2 and cooking my pet rabbits by age 7. Life has been downhill ever since.

No responses yet